according to brendan murphy...

Never, ever, would I have expected to hear such talk at the SJCAF3.

Here I was for "Why The Jews?", held at the JEA, and for more than two hours the guest speaker flung image after image of hatred of the Jews on the screen.

[The link is for the same talk, given earlier elsewhere.]

Brendan Murphy, is Catholic by faith and a history professor in Atlanta by trade.

He is on tour with this history lecture which he has prepared from carved and painted images, as well as written manuscripts throughout more than two millennia of human history.

His talk is meant to debunk the myth that Christians started the hatred of the Jews.

Well, he certainly convinced me of that.

However, he also convinced me of who did begin that bias toward members of Judaism.

 

The source of that hatred is the group of Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah.

That would include his Disciples, especially Matthew and John.

Picture this: three generations have passed since Jesus died.

That's sixty years, or so, of one group of people trying to convince others of the elevated standing and importance of one individual.

Got the picture?

After that time, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have been written, using the vernacular of the day, and written to intentionally demean disbelievers, written to encourage others of the validity of their stance on Jesus being the Messiah.

[I immediately could relate that to the virulent language used today in political ads.]

Years pass, the subtext behind the words used in that language have been forgotten...

but the words remain, having been written for future readers, who will be people who do not remember or understand that the words were rhetoric, not intended to be taken verbatim hundreds of years later.

As they were, and have been ever since.

Within 300 years after Jesus was crucified, hatred of the Jews - specifically of the Pharisees, as they are the only Jewish tribe (of the six extant before the time of Jesus' birth) still living - had become a way of life, a matter of fact, the status quo.

All because people misinterpreted the language used for the Gospels, and their purpose.

 

He held a question and answer session after he was done.

He had told us that he usually gives this talk to all-Jewish or all-Christian audiences.

I don't think he was aware that this audience had a mixture of followers of both faiths.

My question to him: "I'm a member of Asbury Memorial Church and I have attended several tri-faith services. Have you ever presented this talk to a Muslim audience?"

His response was that he had not yet been invited to talk at a mosque, only at synagogues and churches, and that he went only when invited.

I found that interesting, that he only went when sought out.

Several members from other churches came up and spoke to me afterward, asking about various aspects of the early part of the talk, which they had missed.

No one had missed any of the talk about the Jews for Jesus, as that began just before the second hour of his multimedia presentation.

Jackie and I talked about the new two figures in the sculpture displayed behind Brendan Murphy, in above photo.

Throughout much of history involving these two female figures, Ecclesia has been shown standing, clad in regal garments, with Synagoga cringing beside her and blind.

The new statue is a variation of Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time, the one designed by Joshua Koffman in 2015 for the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate.

[That was the Declaration of the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions put forth on October 28, 1965, by the Vatican under Pope Paul VI.]

In the statue by Hoffman, both figures are sitting side by side, each with their religious tomes held open for the other to read, with Synagoga on the left and Ecclesia on the right.

Brendan Murphy had liked that bronze statue so much when he'd visited St. Joseph's University, in Philadelphia, that he spearheaded a movement to obtain a copy for the Marist School, where he teaches.

Their sculpture of Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time was installed in 2021, at the side entrance to the Wooldridge Center and facing the arcade, so plenty of students will be able to admire it, and learn from it, as they enjoy life on campus.

Perhaps every campus should have such an enlightened statue for inspiration.